Forward Deng Zihui's[1]
Comments on the Report on Urban Work
(May 31, 1951)

Comrades Shu Shi, Zihui, Jianying, Xiaoping, Zhongxun, Yibo, Gao Gang,[2] and to be forwarded to the Party committees of all provinces, municipalities, and regions:

Deng Zihui's opinions on urban work[3] are hereby forwarded to you for reference. In factories, mines, docks, and streets, it is necessary to mobilize the masses to wage resolute struggles against those reactionary elements who have habitually oppressed and exploited the masses, to draw a clear line between the enemy and ourselves, and to deal these reactionary elements necessary blows, with the most serious offenders being executed. This is absolutely necessary. Please pay attention to this.

Mao Zedong
May 31

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[1] Deng Zihui was then serving as the Third Secretary of the Central-South Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

[2] Shu Shi, i.e., Rao Shushi, was then serving as the First Secretary of the East China Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Jianying, i.e., Ye Jianying, was then serving as the First Secretary of the South China Sub-Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Xiaoping, i.e., Deng Xiaoping, was then serving as the First Secretary of the Southwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Zhongxun, i.e., Xi Zhongxun, was then serving as the First Secretary of the Northwest Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Yibo, i.e., Bo Yibo, was then serving as the First Secretary of the North China Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Gao Gang was then serving as the Secretary of the Northeast Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.

[3] The main opinions on urban work put forward in Deng Zihui's report to Mao Zedong and the Central Committee on May 16, 1951, were: In factories and mines, it is necessary to resolve to mobilize the workers with full force to carry out a democratic reform movement, so as to sweep away the lower-level feudal foundation in bureaucratic capitalist enterprises. Only through this stage of the movement can factories and mines become new enterprises of the people and have prospects for great development. In the streets, too, a stage of mass democratic reform movement must be carried out in order to eliminate the feudal and secret agent forces in the cities, and to sweep away the lower-level foundation of bureaucratic capital and imperialism in the cities, so that the cities may truly become cities of the people.